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StoryCorps 463: Journey’s End

In this episode of the StoryCorps podcast, we hear from people who were forced to flee their homes because of war, poverty, or fear of death. All three stories involve individuals who embarked on difficult journeys, but even as they found safety in their new homelands, their personal struggles continued.

In 1993, Shengqiao Chen left China—along with almost 300 other undocumented immigrants—aboard the Golden Venture, a freight ship headed for the United States. The ship ran aground on Rockaway Beach in Queens, New York, and ten people drowned. Chen survived and was one of 110 people detained while seeking political asylum.

While in custody, many of Chen’s fellow prisoners became despondent and suicidal. Dr. Zehao Zhou (pictured together at left), a translator at the prison, would organize vigils outside their windows to show support and to keep their hopes alive. In 1995, Chen was paroled and allowed to remain free while seeking asylum.

Chen came to StoryCorps with Dr. Zhou to discuss the shipwreckand his time in prison.

Our next story is about Operation Pedro Pan (Operation Peter Pan), a mass exodus of Cuban children to the United States in the early 1960s sent by parents who wanted to get them out from under Fidel Castro’s regime. Over the years, 14,000 children traveled unaccompanied to Miami and one man—Jorge “George” Guarch—met nearly all of them.

Fluent in both Spanish and English, Jorge acted as an intermediary between American authorities and Cuban children (see photo in the player above). His daughter, Lynn Guarch Pardo, came to StoryCorps with Jose “Pepe” Noriega (pictured together at left), one of the children her father helped. Together they remember her father and Jose recalls the emotional toll leaving his parents and his home country took on him, and the generosity and kindness shown to him by Jorge.

Our last story is about Eric Lamet, a young Jewish boy living in Austria when the Germans annexed the country in the 1930s. Eric’s family fled to Italy but he became separated from his father and in 1948, an Italian court declared his father legally dead. His mother then remarried. Soon after, a postcard arrived from his father informing him that he was alive and living in a camp in Austria.

Eric came to StoryCorps to remember seeing his father again after believing him to be dead, and their final moments together years later.

Transcript

StoryCorps 463: Journey’s End

[MUSIC “A Human Being” by Andy G. Cohen]

Michael Garofalo (MG): Think about the place you call home — the familiar sounds, the smells. Now think about having to leave it without knowing if you’ll ever see it again. That’s what the people in today’s episode did. We’ll hear about the journeys these people took and what happened when those journeys came to an end. These are stories about who they met, how they were welcomed — or not — and whether journeys like these are ever really finished.

Lynn Guarch Pardo (LGP): Pepe, how did you feel when you got on that plane?

Jose Noriega (PN): Well, it’s like one life ended and another one begin.

Zehao Zhou (ZZ): Your mother thought you were dead, and she set up a family shrine for you.

Eric Lamet (EL): He was the only one on the platform at that time. It was a broken man, walking with a limp and a cane, wearing a suit that probably was two, three sizes larger than he was.

MG: This is the StoryCorps podcast from NPR. I’m Michael Garofalo. Stay with us.

[PROMO]

Welcome back.

In this episode we’re following 3 people who had to flee their homes, and hearing about how — and if — those journeys ended.

Our first journey is by sea.

In 1993, Shengqiao Chen, who was 18 at the time, boarded a freighter called the Golden Venture. It was headed for the United States from China. And he was one of nearly 300 people on the ship who were being smuggled into this country. As the Golden Venture approached New York Harbor, it ran aground.

Ten people drowned trying to reach land. And many of those who made it, including Shengqiao, were detained in U.S. prisons for years waiting for political asylum.

That’s where Zehao Zhou enters the story. He worked as a translator in the prison where Shengqiao was being held. And twenty years, after they first met, they sat down and had this conversation at StoryCorps.

Shengqiao Chen (SC): After three months, we finally see the land.

Zehao Zhou (ZZ): You knew that was America?

SC: They told us, ”This is United States.”

Archival Audio:The freight ship that carried them ran aground off the coast of Rockaway Peninsula in Queens. Some people actually jumped from the ship to try to swim to shore.

SC: The water was very cold.

ZZ: How long did you swim, do you remember?

SC: You can’t really swim. The waves move you back. And I passed out.

ZZ: You passed out?

SC: And then a couple of my friends carried me out of the water.

Archival Audio: About 200 people were treated for exhaustion and exposure.

SC: When I woke up–I was in the hospital. I had my hand handcuffed on the bed.

ZZ: You were in the hospital bed handcuffed?

SC: Yeah.

ZZ: Then you were sent to a detention center.

Archival Audio: Immigration officials shipped off 110 of the illegal aliens to a prison in North Pennsylvania this morning.

SC: I think the most difficult time is after six months, and you don’t know what your future is going to be.

ZZ: Your mother thought you were dead, and she set up a family shrine for you.

SC: Yeah.

ZZ: I have 20 letters that you wrote me while you were detained. The letters described all the, you know, suicidal thoughts, attempts, people giving up. Remember we had the vigils outside the prison?

SC: I remember. Every Sunday when you guys were outside, we would watch you through the window. A lot of us would tear up because there’s still good people in the world who have a kindness heart.

ZZ: You have lived longer in American than in China, correct?

SC: Yes.

ZZ: When you came, you were only 18 years old, and you went through so much. But is it worth it?

SC: I told my mom, I said that, ”I will either die or I will arrive to the United States.” After 20 years, I feel like I’m a part of this country, you know? I would do it again.

ZZ: You would do it again?

SC: I would definitely do it again.

[MUSIC “Den Sista Fabriken” by Fredrik]

MG: That’s Shengqiao Chen, who survived the Golden Venture shipwreck in 1993. He was speaking with his friend, Dr. Zehao Zhou, in Philadelphia.

Our second journey takes place by air. In 1960, a massive airlift began that brought more than fourteen thousand Cuban children to the U.S. It was called Operation Pedro Pan. These kids were sent out of Castro’s Cuba by their parents, alone. And nearly all of them were met at the Miami airport by the same man. His name was George Guarch.

He was a Cuban-American who worked for the Catholic Welfare Bureau that helped organize the operation. And George Guarch’s handwritten logbook — where he recorded the names and ages of all the children he met — that logbook is for many of these Pedro Pan kids the only record they have of their journey. And what we’re going to hear now is a conversation between George Guarch’s daughter. She sat down to interview one of the children whom her father greeted.

PN: Well, it’s like one life ended and another one begin. We were away from our family for a long time, or maybe never see them again, you know. So it was very, very tough.

LGP: When was the first time that you heard about my dad?

PN: My dad in Cuba said, ”When you go there you’re going to ask for George.”

So I came out of the walkway to the plane and there was a policeman. So I asked for George and he said, ”George? You cannot miss him. He is over there waiting for you guys to get out of there.”

He was there every day. So George took us to your house. And your mom prepared for us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the lunchtime. That’s something I will never forget.

LGP: Wow.

PN: You know, his heart was bigger than his body. And things that were not possible, he will find a way to take care of that.

LGP: I heard stories of siblings that arrived and one of them was already eighteen. And immigration worked with my dad there at the airport and every once in awhile they would ”accidentally” spill a cup of coffee, smear the document, then change the date on the document to keep the kids together so that they. . .

PN: Yes . . .

LGP: . . . would not be out on the streets right away.

PN: That cup of coffee went around very often. [Laughs]

So, later on in life I saw George, and we decide to go to lunch on Wednesdays. So Wednesdays at twelve o’clock either he will go to my office or I’ll go to his place of work. And we did that for many years. Until one day that I went to get him and he has died the day before.

LGP: It’ll be twenty years this May. And I remember the first time that I met you as an adult. I remember you having tears in your eyes when you gave me a hug and told me how you felt about my father.

PN: He was one of my best friends. I got five fingers. I only can count all my good friends with one hand, and George was maybe number one. And every time we talk about him you’re going to get wet eyes, too, believe me.

LGP: Well, I’m glad he was there for you kids. Because I know he was the right person for that job.

For our last story, we’re going to go back to the 1930s in Europe. Eric Lamet was a young boy living in Austria when Nazi Germany annexed that country. The Lamets, who were Jewish, fled to Italy and in the process Eric and his mother got separated from his father. During the war years that followed, they didn’t hear anything from him. The war ended, and they still had no word.

Eric Lamet (EL): In 1946 an Italian court declared him legally dead. My mother – she met another man and, uh, started a new relationship. And, shortly thereafter, we got a postcard that my father was alive and that he was in a displaced person camp in Austria.

I was going to college in a town near Florence and my father came to visit me in that town. And I was very excited. I mean, I was sixteen years old at the time. I had not seen my dad in 8 years. I waited at the railroad station for quite a bit of time. I got there a little bit early.

And my father was a very dapper man. He always dressed in a double-breasted suit. His hair was perfectly combed, always had a kerchief in his jacket. But, um, when the train came I saw these people get off and there was nobody there that even resembled my dad.

Eventually, somebody called out my name. He was the only one on the platform at that time. It was a broken man, walking with a limp and a cane, certainly not well-dressed. He was wearing a suit that probably was two, three sizes larger than he was.

I was emotionally totally destroyed when I saw my dad. For two hours we spoke on a bench in the railroad station and I remember that he said to me, ’How were you?’ and ’How are you?’ And the only other question that I remember was he said to me, ’And how do you like this Italian gentleman?’ I don’t remember anything else that we talked about.

He eventually decided to immigrate to Palestine. And, um, I did not see my dad for 28 years. One day, when I spoke to his wife, she said to me that he was very sick and he was in the hospital. The next day, I was on a plane. My father did not know that I was coming because I didn’t tell anybody I was going. But as I entered the door of the hospital room – he was the only one there. He recognized me immediately and called out my name.

[MUSIC “In Paler Skies,” by Blue Dot Sessions]

MG: That’s it for this episode of the StoryCorps podcast. These stories were produced by Jasmyn Belcher Morris with help from Matt Martin, myself and Katie Simon. The podcast is produced by me and Elisheba Ittoop. And as always, you can go to our website, StoryCorps dot org, if you want to find out what music we used in this episode. While you’re there, you can find out how to record one of your own interview, either at recording booths or with our do-it-yourself smartphone app. And before we go, a big thank you to everybody who left us reviews on iTunes over the past week. We’d love to hear from more of you. If you haven’t had a chance yet, head over to iTunes and tell us what you think of the podcast. We really do read them all. Until next time, for the StoryCorps podcast, I’m Michael Garofalo. Thanks for listening.